


Unsteady

by ohhstark



Series: Forged From the After [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Mild Sexual Content, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-07-21 22:58:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7408573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohhstark/pseuds/ohhstark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m sure they never imagined this when they created me,” he says. There are a lot of things he doubts they’d imagined for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They are both of them haunted, hunted, by memories. Clinging like so much glue to their fingers, to their lips, to their lungs. They linger, just out of reach, and wait in the depths to strike. Twisted things wearing the masks of the ones they loved and lost. 

He catches the drift of a long skirt in the breeze and remembers the woman he lost to his own ambition. Sometimes, she buries her face into his chest and her dead husband’s name tumbles down, _down_ between them in the dark. 

It feels impossible that they could be granted this. A small haven with rock walls beaten upon by the phantoms of their old lives, just a step behind. Dogging them. Twisting the knife in deep till the point is pressed just so to their hearts. But they do. And they feel the pain and joy and rightness of it every second that they hold each other. 

He presses his lips like a perfect secret to her cheek, to her palms, to her hair. She drags her fingers along his neck, exposed wires and all. And licks a blazing, white-hot trail the length of his torso. They pull each other in and hold fast to the heat, to the bright pinpricks behind their eyes. 

Time marks the touch of their hands and lips. The present bleeds and bleeds between the memories. Stains them, drowns them, in gaping pools of red. 

It isn’t much, but it is something. To be able to claw themselves out of those pools. Their names ripped raw from their throats, their hands clasped tight, and the darkness within them narrowing to a fine point that shatters with a blinding flash. 

Never mind their missing parts and unsteady hearts. This moment, as imperfect as it is, is theirs and theirs alone. His lips and tongue and teeth gentle on the slope of her shoulder. Her hair a flaxen curtain between them and the rest of this broken world. 

She closes her eyes and finally pulls away. She slips from him and falls back against the pillows, her smile drawing him like a siren song after her. They curl around each other and he cards his metal fingers into her hair. 

His smile twists into something wry and wonderful when she sighs. Breathy and content; nearly a purr. 

“I’m sure they never imagined this when they created me,” he says. There are a lot of things he doubts they’d imagined for him. 

“I think you underestimate the things people can imagine,” she says with a laugh as he sneaks a kiss to the side of her neck. She smells like hope and sunshine and the homemade soap she stocked up on in Diamond City. His hand slides from her hair to her neck. The too fast _thump-thump_ of her pulse echoes through his steel fingers. He wishes, God, but he wishes they could stay like this forever; skin to skin in the warm afterglow of ecstasy with the memories all but washed clean. The edges of everything soft and gentle and pliant.

But already he can feel the corners of the room growing darker. 

“Do you ever wonder if we met Before?” He blinks at the question. 

“With you and Nick working the same circuit, probably,” he replies and it’s a very narrow thing that he’s able to catch himself. Not you and I. He’d had a good long talk about this very thing with Mama Murphy. He was Nick, but he isn’t. He has the memories, his head stuffed so full of them that it is hard to breathe sometimes, but they aren’t _his_. Not really. His history began in a trash heap. When the Institute threw him away without so much as a by-your-leave. 

That was where he and Nick diverged. The man and the Synth cleaved into two separate, but connected pieces. Two parts of one whole. Or maybe two parts of two wholes. 

“Yeah,” she mutters, tracing a wayward finger over his shoulder. His neural sensors hum and tingle in response. “I guess it doesn’t matter either way. It wasn’t _you_ , not really. And you’re here now.”

“I could kiss you for saying that,” he says. His throat is too tight as he says it and the words slip free, hoarse and heavy in his mouth. 

And true to form, she just smiles. Simple and unwavering and certain in a way that things in this world never get to be anymore. Damn him, but there are no proper words to describe what she does to him. What she makes him feel. 

So he kisses her. Kisses her until she pulls away, laughing. Kisses her until the laughter cuts off, chokes, and dies in her throat. Kisses her until she is breathless and pleading. Kisses her until she grips his wrist, fierce and wanting. Always the gentleman, he obliges. He pulls his hand away and trails it down her body. All pink and flushed skin that puckers and shudders and gives all for him. Only for him, so she’d say. 

Together, they chase away the encroaching darkness. 

“Nick?” she says and doesn’t wait for him to reply before forging on. “I love you.”

The admission shoots through him like lightning. Forking off and off through the tips of his fingers, the corners of his mouth, the heart that _isn’t there_. 

His tongue is tied. His throat aches. He can’t say the words, won’t say them. But he presses his hands to her, makes her arch and gasp and moan his name. Kisses her senseless. Until there is no doubt how he could feel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all SO MUCH for all the comments, kudos, and subscriptions. When I started this, I didn't think I would be updating it all that much or that I would get past a few small drabbles. But it's become so much bigger than I'd ever hoped. And yeah...I hope you're all enjoying the ride as much as I am. Please R&R if you can. Happy reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick can’t blush, but as heat blooms on her cheeks and down the back of her neck, she thinks she’s embarrassed enough for them both.

She dresses in the early hours of morning. The only noises in the room are the quiet rasps of her clothing against her skin and the gentle whirring of Nick’s processors. His hands are folded neatly on his stomach, his legs thrown out along the length of her mattress. 

She likes seeing him there. In her bed. His tie undone around his neck and his collar peeking open. She likes seeing him, period, but there’s something infinitely special and precious about him in her bed. It looks like peace. 

It looks like _home_. 

“You’re thinkin’ awful hard over there,” he says beneath the brim of his fedora. She grins because of course he would be watching her watching him. She abandons the soft leather boots she was about to pull on and crosses the room to him in three quick strides. She climbs onto the bed, climbs into his lap, and presses her lips to his cheek. 

“I always think _hard_ when I look at you,” she whispers. It surprises a laugh out of him, his fingers digging into her hips to keep her very still but gentle enough to make statements of their own. He holds her like he’s holding sunshine. Like something warm and gentle and infinitely precious. 

“I’ve created a monster,” he says. She opens her mouth to retort, but he kisses her until she can’t breathe, let alone think. His lips drift lower. He trails lazy kisses down her cheek, follows the strong jut of her jaw, worships the column of her throat. 

She hums and tilts her head back to give him a better angle. He chuckles and she feels it all the way down to their joined hips. 

“Hope you didn’t have any plans today,”Nick says. The tips of his fingers slide under her shirt, sending jolts of pleasure through her. He created a monster. But she’d created an absolute nightmare.

_ _ _ 

“As happy as I am for you crazy kids, you think you could keep it down in there?” Hancock says as soon as they step out the door. Nick can’t blush, but as heat blooms on her cheeks and down the back of her neck, she thinks she’s embarrassed enough for them both. 

“Aw, leave ‘em alone. With all the shit going on right now, it’s nice to see some happiness,” Sturges pipes up from where he’s leaning in the doorway of the main house. There’s a quiet beat and she waits for one of them to break in again. Sturges and Hancock had made it their mission to poke fun whenever they had the chance. 

“It’s nice,” Hancock nods in agreement. “Nice and loud.” 

“Alright, alright. You’ve had your amusement quota for the day,” she says, but her grin betrays the words for what they really are. 

“Let ‘em have their fun, Nora,” Nick says and presses his metal hand to the small of her back. She shudders and resolutely does not think about going inside again. She can’t remember a time when she wasn’t thinking about sex with Nick, which is really all she needs to figure out that things are _moving way too fast_. But she’s already said the words, already shown her hand and her heart and there is no going back from that. Because it isn’t just sex she wants with Nick, she knows that much.

This thing between them is so very, very new. Yes, it’s fast (because they never do anything in half measures). And reckless (she can think of a dozen different people who would use this against them). Terrifying, even (sweaty palms and trembling lips and the frantic flutter of her pulse beneath his hands). But it is also, at its very core, _right_ (right when he reaches for her hand in the dark, right when he shoots a rabid raider over her shoulder, right when she pulls him close and he does not pull away). 

She loves him. Loves him as much as she ever loved Nate and Shaun. Loves him so much that it _hurts_ to think of not loving him. To think of not having him. And in this new world of theirs, she’s seen how easy it is to lose. Lose and lose and lose. 

Well, fate be damned, she’s determined to hold and keep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She never thought she would see the world end again, but here she is. A detonator in her blood-stained hands and a mushroom cloud billowing over the Commonwealth.

She never thought she’d see the end of the world. Not again. Not like _this_. It’s been over 200 years and she thought it was over. She thought the bombs were over, she thought the Oppressive Regime was over, she thought that part of her life was over. 

But they are still there, the remnants, the tatters. Just waiting for her to gather them up into her arms. Broken pieces, jagged shards, of herself spread across the Commonwealth. They dig into the palms of her hands. They rip and slice her to shreds as she fits them on again like armor. The armor that keeps growing, cumbersome and clinging to her shoulders and legs and hands. There isn’t a single moment of this new life that she hasn’t hated. There is not a moment she wouldn’t give away just to be held in Nate’s arms one last time or to brush her fingertips across Shaun’s fine and feathered hair. 

Until she meets him. Nick Valentine. A name that sticks in the back of her throat. Like she knows it, like she knows _him_. But she doesn’t, of course. He’s a man trapped in a machine, all wires and cracked smiles. 

_Question is-_

Here, he strikes a match. Lights a cigarette. The smoke tumbles out of the sides of his face and neck, exposed wires and gears wreathed in gray. She doesn’t know him, she _doesn’t_ , but she’d like to.

_Why did our heroine risk life and limb for an old private eye?_

Because I need you. I need your help. My son, Shaun-

_Say no more. Missing kids are top priority. But now ain’t the time. Let’s blow this joint. Then, we’ll talk._

Later, after with Skinny’s blood still caked on her boots, they do talk. They talk about Shaun and the things she remembers, which isn’t much as it happens. She remembers the Vault Tec Rep. She remembers the bombs. She remembers the sound of Nate’s voice as he tells her he loves her. And she remembers the gunshot and Shaun’s screams. They talk and they talk and once she starts, she can’t seem to stop. The words tumble out of her and all the while, Nick just stares. 

As Diamond City falls quiet around them. As the memories finally settle. As her words slow and then stop altogether. He stares. The look in his eyes is enough to break her heart. 

_ _ _

She pays it forward, that’s for sure. There isn’t a moment when she doesn’t stop breaking _his_ heart. Not when she makes fists of her hands when Preston calls her General. Not when he comes to with her gun in his face and Kellogg’s words turning sour in his mouth. Not when she presses that damned button and destroys the world a second time over. 

For the first time, he’s okay with having a broken heart. He’s okay letting her smash it to bits if only she’ll look at him, talk to him, touch him a few moments more. 

He loves her. Because how could he not? Nora with her blonde hair twisted in a braid and wrapped in twine. Nora with her soft smiles and fierce eyes. Nora with her pistol in one hand and the other reaching for him, always reaching for him. Because she knows he’ll be there to latch onto. 

“Mr. Valentine?” A small voice calls out to him, accompanied by the pattering of bare feet. Nora’s told him a thousand times not to run around like that, but Shaun refuses to keep his shoes on. 

“Yeah, kid?” Nick asks. And the kid, _Shaun_ , just lights up like a Christmas tree at that. He grins with his tongue between his teeth and his fingers twisting knots around themselves. He shouldn’t be surprised that Shaun would keep breaking his heart too. Synthetic or not, there is no doubt about it. Nora is his mother. 

“I heard Sturges talking about some wild Mutfruit bushes. I was thinking we could go find them. For Mom.” Shaun says it and there’s this shine to his eyes that Nick wants to cradle close and protect. There’s so much bad, it’d be nice to add something to the good and pure list. 

Nick was never the kind of man to want kids. With a job like his, it just wasn’t in the cards for him. But now. Now? He could have Nora and Shaun and all the rest of it if he wanted. He could have it all, he realized with sudden and striking clarity, and his chest felt too tight and too loose all at once. It seemed too good to be true. It felt like a trick, like the universe playing the cruelest joke. 

It also felt like maybe things were finally going his way. Finally going _their_ way. 

“Nick!” Nora shouts from some distance away. He turns with Shaun and he knows they’ve got identical expressions on their faces. Adoration, amusement, love. He’s a besotted fool for this woman already, but God does he love her. 

She’s grinning as she jogs over, all teeth and tongue, and her eyes too-wide. She tugs Shaun to her and grabs Nick’s hand. 

“Ellie just hijacked the Diamond City radio station. She’s got a case she thinks we’ll be very interested in.”

“Oh really?” he says, huffing a laugh with the words. 

Just like that, the moment fragments and bursts. The world keeps spinning beneath their feet. There are always more cases, more bad guys, _just more_ that they will have to face. Being who they are, what they are, he realizes they’ll never have a quiet moment. 

He wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your continued support!! I really appreciate it. AND SEE I can get out a chapter in less than a month. (I am ashamed and this is a cop out anyways because this chapter was pretty much written already whoops). Kind of a different chapter, but I had a lot of fun with it. This is actually going to be the longest part, not sure _how_ long, but we shall see.


	4. Chapter 4

She isn’t sure what to expect from Far Harbor. With Kasumi’s audio tapes and the half-cocked rumors they’ve heard about the town wreathed in fog, she isn’t sure what to expect. But if she’s learned anything from Nick, it’s that a detective has to keep an open mind going into any situation.

The fog breaks and through it they can see abandoned boats and unnamed creatures shifting away from the light on the bank. They can see ramshackle huts and docks with hanging lanterns. And as they approach, they see a calm woman and a man, a rifle gripped tight enough for his knuckles to stain white. 

“And I thought the Wealth was unfriendly,” Nick intones in that way of his. She smiles, but it’s an uneasy thing twisting red-hot through her. For the first time, she starts to wonder if they shouldn’t have taken the case.

She turns to him, the sway of the boat making her a little wobbly. She is steady, though, as she presses a hand to his chest. Right over where his heart would be, could be, _is_. 

“I’m glad you’re here with me,” she says. He smiles, soft, and kisses her cheek. A light brush of his lips, but it sends her heart racing.

“Me too, doll.”

And that’s it. She’s scared out of her mind, for reasons she can’t begin to understand and _it’s okay_. Because Nick is here. Nick is close. His hand is curled around the curve of her elbow and she’s flying as high as she can go. 

They clamber off the boat, their breathless laughter ringing hollow in the harbor. Their smiles fading with the fog as, together, they fling themselves into the chase. With no thoughts given to the old saying her father was so ardently fond of.

_What goes up must come down_. 

_ _ _

She and Nick make their way through Far Harbor together, their guns blazing and their eyes wicked bright with anticipation. They hear things. Whispers and half-truths about the synth colony built into the mountain. 

Acadia. 

It sounds like something out of one of those old novels Nora likes to flick through sometimes. The proverbial city on a hill. And yet, his stomach twists every time he so much as thinks about it. And he doesn’t understand _why_. 

But they push forward. He pushes forward. Because it’s what they do and because this isn’t about him and damn him, but every time Nora gets that look in her eye, his heart lurches and he doesn’t have it in him to say no. The look that says she’ll tear apart the Commonwealth to get it done, whatever _it_ is. The look that’s made Raiders fall over themselves trying to run away. The look that made him love her beyond anything that he ever dreamed himself capable of. 

Once they find time between The Captain’s Dance and Small Bertha’s pleas to set up a new settlement off of the damp and rotting Far Harbor docks, Nora leads him into The Last Plank and straight for Old Longfellow with his shoulders curved over a pint. They take in his off-white hair and the lines etched into his broad forehead. He doesn’t look like much, but then looks don’t matter much. Not anymore.

“I hear you can get us to the synth refuge,” Nora says as soon as she’s level with his table. The man doesn’t move from his position, doesn’t even acknowledge that she’s spoken to him. 

She waits in uneasy silence, then glances over her shoulder at Nick. He nods and faces Longfellow again.

“We need a guide to Acadia. Any chance you’d be willing to help us with that?” Nick says. Longfellow doesn’t look up, but his shoulders tense suddenly. It’s something, even if they have no idea what it could mean.

“What, are you trying to pawn off your pet?” Longfellow lashes out evenly. Like he’s asking about the weather. Like the question isn’t enough to change _everything_.

It takes Nora a moment to figure it out. When she does, she reels back in disgust at the insinuation. He wants to touch her, to tell her it’s okay, but he has a feeling he would just make it worse. Longfellow’s face finally turns from his cup to meet her gaze. Something dances in his eyes as he takes in the fury on her face. It’s there and gone too quickly for him to see what it could be.

“We’re looking for someone. A young woman named Kasumi Nakano. She’s in Acadia,” Nick says and Nora visibly deflates at the sound of his voice. Longfellow turns to him then and there is definitely a smile there now. Testing the waters. A dangerous thing to do these days, but Nick has to respect the other man’s gumption. 

“I can get you there, alright, but I don’t know you. How do I know you won’t get me killed out there, mainlander?” 

“I’ve faced a lot worse with a lot less. I need to get to Acadia. With or without your help,” Nora says. He can’t see her face from where he’s standing, but Longfellow’s response is enough. No one can say no to that face.

So he nods and abandons his cups with a grin. The quick laugh that tumbles from Longfellow is enough to curve Nick’s lips in response.

“Well, I can’t say no to that level of crazy. Anything you need to grab before we head out?” 

“No, we’re all set,” Nora says. 

Longfellow stands and slings his rifle over his shoulder. He moves past her without another word and makes for the door. Nick takes the moment to move closer to her. Her hands are still shaking. He takes one of them and presses it to his chest. 

“Hey,” he mutters. Low enough so only she can hear. He hears the sharp intake of her breath and feels his heart pull to the ebb and flow of it. 

“I’m okay, I just…” she says and her palm digs into his shirt a little. 

“I know,” he says, “I _know_.” 

And he does. He knows it enough to wish they were alone. So he could kiss the frown from her lips. So he could smooth the furrow between her brows. So she could touch him with those shaking hands and let it go. 

But they aren’t alone and he can feel the weight of strangers stares. He lets her hand go. It doesn’t fall from his chest. She doesn’t relax her grip on his shirt. 

Her hands aren’t shaking anymore and a smile is blooming on her face like Spring sunshine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a different chapter and I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with it, but I wanted to get something out since I've been working on this chapter for FOREVER. Please review if you can. It keeps this old writer going. :P And thank you to everyone who's been reading thus far. Thank you for taking this journey with me.


	5. Chapter 5

“You know, when I first climbed this mountain, above the fog, I thought to myself: now here is a metaphor worth taking in,” a voice says as they step into Acadia and make their way towards the dome-shaped room at the back of the mountain. The room is full of gentle whirring and the soft sound of the wind catching on the missing sheets of metal in the roof. In the center of the room is a platform swathed in shadow. 

She watches as a lithe figure rises and steps into the light. Another metaphor worth taking in if she’s ever seen one. He is a mass of wires, tubes, and exposed metal framework. Her fingers itch for the shotgun strapped to her back, but she doesn’t move. 

Looking at him is like looking at Nick. A warped and twisted version of him, but _still_. It breaks her heart. It twists something dark inside of her and she scrabbles for that as he looks her over. 

“You are here for Kasumi,” he says. It is a statement that sends shudders racing down her spine at the implication. She wonders how long it took after they landed for him to get wind of their arrival. She wonders if he’s been watching them from the beginning. 

“Yes,” she says. He smiles at her, a quiet moment slipping between them as he continues.

“She is here. Alive and safe, below. You may seek her out if you wish,” he says and averts his eyes over her shoulder. She feels a sudden courage at that. But just as she opens her mouth, the man cuts her off with a disbelieving twist of his face.

“Nick? Is that really you?”

Something fractures inside of her. She feels Nick’s weight settle at her shoulder. She holds on to that. Holds on to his quiet, simulated breathing, the vibrations of his boots on the metal floor, and the echo of his voice in the wide room. 

“Cut the bull,” Nick says, words tight with rage. “Just who the hell are you? There’s only one synth with a face like that and a mind of his own and I only see him when I look in the mirror.” 

Her eyes fly open and she looks over her shoulder at Nick. But he doesn’t look back, or can’t. His eyes are locked on the other man’s and it’s terrifying realizing how different they really are if you only look. 

“Nick, it’s me,” DiMA says, as if that answers anything. As if it answers everything. And maybe it does.

His face is open and light in a way that she’s never seen Nick’s. Nick with his guilt and his not-memories and the chip on his shoulder a mile long. Nick with the sad twist of his lips and the way he says her name in the early morning hours. There is nothing of that in his face now. His mouth is curled back in rage and mistrust, his eyes hard and cutting. 

“Don’t give me that. What are you trying to pull? I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

“If you’ll give me the chance to explain-,” DiMA says and turns his eyes from Nick to hers once again. 

“Start talking,” she says. It isn’t hard. She can’t muster the energy for the bad cop routine, so it comes out all wrong. Soft and gentle. She’s so tired. DiMA nods at her, like he understands. As if he could possibly understand. 

“We were prototypes, Nick. We were the first synths capable of independent thought and judgment. We were the beginning of the Third Generation synths.”

“Keep talking,” Nick says. There is a little less anger in his voice this time. DiMA indulges him with a bitter smile. 

“One of the Institute’s experiments had to do with how our brains process personality. If we could handle individualized feelings and behaviors. I was allowed to develop mine on my own. But with you, they wanted to try transferring an entire personality into you.”

It’s only when Nick starts that she realizes she’s stepped back into him. He jerks away from her, his face twisting. She wants to reach for him, she wants to comfort him, but she doesn’t. She’s frozen in place as DiMA unravels Nick’s entire world. 

“It took several attempts before it worked. I saw you wake up not knowing who you were, _what_ you were, so many times…

“I couldn’t let them to do it to you anymore. We were the only two prototypes they made and you were, _you are_ , my brother, Nick. I helped you escape the Institute. We left together.”

“Alright,” Nick growls as he takes her hand. “We’ve heard enough.” DiMA zeros in on their joined hands and she feels the need to shield it from him. She wants to trust him, wants to believe him, but she knows it has everything to do with his connection to Nick. And it’s Nick she trusts, Nick she loves. If he’s done listening, then so is she. 

“Nick, please!” 

DiMA’s pleas fall deaf on their ears as they race from Acadia. They don’t say anything as they steal themselves away from the mountain and back down to Far Harbor. Her heart thunders in her chest and she can’t stop looking at Nick. His face is drawn in a way that she’s never seen before and he is never more than a step away from her as they settle into their rented room at The Last Plank for the evening. 

She helps him out of his coat and hangs it carefully on the hooks on the back of the door. She lingers, the tips of her fingers digging into the worn cotton. The metal and oil smell of him clings to the coat. She takes it in and lets everything else fall away.

“Nick…” she says finally. Because she can’t look at him and talk about this. She can’t stand the thought of him hurting alone. He hums in response and steps up behind her. She holds her breath and waits. 

He leans forward and presses his face into the space between her shoulder and neck. His arms come around her from behind and he just sighs into her. 

“I don’t know what to do,” he says. She looks up towards the sky, his name caught in her throat and her heart swelling in earnest. God, but she loves this man. “Do you think he really could be my brother?”

“Well, he’s not as handsome as you, but I might be a little biased,” she whispers. He chuckles into her shoulder, sounding grateful for just a moment. The knot in her stomach loosens, but doesn’t disappear.

“I spent so long wondering if the Institute made other prototypes. If I was just a...failure, or they gave up, or just plain got bored.”

He pauses to breathe, just breathe, and it’s enough to pull at her heart. Enough to make her regret all those years that he was alone. All those years he had no idea that he had family, that he had a brother. 

“I always thought I was just more of their discarded trash. Never thought of the possibility that someone wanted me out or helped me escape. There’s gotta be some proof out there about what really happened between me and DiMA.”

He sounds so damned hopeful, she does the only thing she can. The only thing that makes sense. She turns in his arms and takes his face in her hands. She doesn’t see discarded trash when she looks at him. She doesn’t see DiMA in his eyes. She doesn’t feel a man on the brink as his metal fingers just brush against her skin where her shirt rides up. 

“We’ll find it, Nick. We will,” she says fiercely. For him, she’d tear the world apart. As he tugs her to his chest and as the anxious knot in her stomach finally comes undone, she thinks she might have to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I revved up the drama in this one. Hope you guys enjoyed. I've been waiting to write this interaction for a long time. It's pretty much why I wrote this fic. This chapter and the next are going to be especially important. I hope you guys like them. Please R & R if you can. I've gotten such a lovely response to this story and this entire series. I really appreciate the love and support. You all are the best!!


	6. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She doesn’t want to face it, doesn’t want to admit to herself something that she’s been running from since she woke up. Or running towards.

They haven’t had a decent night of rest since arriving on Far Harbor. For good reason, the people (and not-people) of the island make her uneasy. It’s a little better, a little easier, now that Tektus has been replaced by his more reasonable, if still gruff, Synthetic counterpart. And a little harder given DiMA’s hand in the dealings on the island. 

Nora likes DiMA, for reasons even she would be loathe to admit, but she doesn’t trust him. Not yet. It’s hard when he looks like Nick. 

She sucks in a quick breath, but she can’t think straight and the swell and catch of her lungs is all wrong. She twists on the tiny corner cot she’s claimed for herself and sighs when she finds purchase on the cold, empty space behind her.

Nora lifts her Pip Boy and peers blearily at the screen to read the time. Four in the morning seems a good a time as any to give up on sleep, so she stands, popping joints and easing muscles as she does. Kasumi is close, but the others seem to give her and Nick a wide berth. She smiles briefly at the younger woman before making her way to the staircase leading to the top of the mountain. She takes the steps two at a time, grateful for the slow burn in her thighs and the gentle ache in her lungs. It is not so hard to breathe now. 

She feels the same sense of wonder and foreboding as she crests the top of the stairs and DiMA’s room comes into view. She approaches and finds him hunched over a dim computer screen, his long fingers flying over a keyboard. He doesn’t turn, but he must know that she’s there.

“You’re awake early,” DiMA says, his fingers still moving uncommonly fast over the computer keys. It’s too much like what she’s seen Nick do a thousand times over. Her stomach twists and for the first time, she realizes exactly what it is about DiMA that throws her so much.

The brothers look almost identical, but it’s not hard to know which is which. She’s never known Nick to mince words. He always says what he means, and always means what he says. But DiMA...there is a weight to everything he says. As if each word is carefully measured and controlled to find the most purchase. She doesn’t know what it says, or doesn’t say, about the two brothers that their approach to people is so vastly different.

“I don’t sleep much lately,” she tells him as she moves farther into the room. The click-clacking of keys falters for a moment before resuming with renewed speed and efficiency. 

“You have been rather pre-occupied of late. Is there anything I could help you with?” DiMA says with a slight, indulgent smile in her direction. There it is again. The cultivated not-words that burrow beneath her skin and latch onto muscle and sinew. She wonders how many things he has said to her already, how many things he has been on the cusp of saying, that she has missed. 

“Do you ever say what you mean?” she asks, because she’s about as good as Nick at speaking in veiled half-truths. It earns a chuckle from DiMA and he finally turns from his computer to face her. His eyes are sad despite the lingering upturn of his mouth.

“It’s been so long, I don’t think I remember how,” he says and it twists her heart to realize how true the admission is. There is a moment of silence. She tries not to think too hard about Nick or DiMA or the Institute. It still hurts to think of it, to think of the son that she lost. To think of the son she gained, the son with her smile and Nate’s gentle brown eyes. It hurts just as much to think of DiMA and Nick, mere experiments for the Institute. Puppets in their quest to advance the human race. 

“There is something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” DiMA says. She shakes her head, NickandDiMAandShaun disappating in the slight chill creeping in through the pockmarked ceiling. 

“You’re here for Kasumi, but I suspect there could be another reason you came to us. Have you considered the possibility that you might also be a Synth?” 

This is what she knows. She was a housewife in Boston, Massachusetts in the year 2077. She had a husband named Nate and a son named Shaun. She loved them, loves, will always love them. When they went to Vault 111, she was put in a cryo stasis for over 200 years. 

She woke up, grabbed an abandoned pistol, and hasn’t stopped fighting since. She’s faced down Deathclaws and trigger-happy raiders. She’s fought tooth and nail to bury her demons and find her son. And nothing scares her more than this. 

These words, these feelings, echo. There is a well inside of her, a massive thing almost too big to comprehend. And the words, the feelings, trickle down the barbed edges of her heart to drip into that well and ripple outward. Growing bigger and bigger and lapping at the banks. She doesn’t want to face it, doesn’t want to admit to herself something that she’s been running from since she woke up. 

Or running towards. 

It’s all a blur and at the center of it all is this one inescapable revelation. The truth she never knew she was searching for. 

Cool metal fingers clasp around her own. She startles and looks up to meet the molten yellow eyes that see too much, that have always seen right to the heart of her, and she knows. _She knows._

“Does it matter?”

But it isn’t her voice that gives life to her thoughts. It is Nick. 

The man who’d been stripped and stuffed more times than she could possibly imagine. The man that she had watched for months and months grappling with his own identity. Man? Machine? The man who’d wiped away her tears and said _I’m here._

It is Nick and, of course it would be, because he knows her better than anyone. And she realizes, listening to the firmness in his voice, that she knows the answer. 

She squeezes his fingers, just once. A gentle, thrumming thing that sets her heart to soar. 

“You know, I don’t think that it does.” 

There’s the smile unbridled and free to match her own. Man or machine or both, it doesn’t matter. It never did and it never will as long as she has anything to say about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...it was a really tough call to make, but I think this particular fic is just about over. Between classes starting again and working full-time, I wanted to wrap this story up before I'm not able to keep up with updates. I have loved every single comment, kudo, and subscription I have received. And I have loved every moment between Nick and Nora most of all. This story started off as a small little project but turned into something much bigger than I'd anticipated and I'm so grateful for it. I definitely intend to post some sort of epilogue (so stick around for just a little longer lol), but I'm not sure when that'll be. Probably sometime next weekend, but I won't make any promises just in case. 
> 
> Thank you guys so, so much!! If you're interested, you can always follow me on @petyrcapaldee on Twitter and ohhstark.tumblr.com on Tumblr.


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